Not So Fast: 5 Uses for Exit-Intent Popups
Can popups be annoying? Yes. Can they negatively impact SEO? Yes on that too. Even so, the ability to capture crucial visitor information by presenting a compelling offer before they close your Web page can do wonders for lead generation (e.g., when a form is included) and conversions (e.g., when providing an offer).
Exit-intent popups can work for nearly every industry and every conversion type, so let's take a look at some solid examples from across the Web.
1. Increase Newsletter Sign-Ups
A person may have just read through a relevant and interesting article and are ready to leave, why not offer them the ability to sign up for your email newsletter before they do? Check out this example from Gleam, which is presented to visitors of its blog when they show indications of being ready to bounce:
Gleam provides a product called "Capture," which allows businesses to grow their email list by triggering smart "Capture popups" based on browser behaviors, then brands can sync the data in real-time with 30-plus supported email providers.
2. Reduce Cart Abandonment
Retailers are quite familiar with how high abandon shopping cart rates are, and frequently use cross-channel retargeting (social, email, search) to convince shoppers to come back and complete their orders. With exit-intent popups, brands can get would-be abandoners to complete their orders by offering them a real-time incentive instead. Using Gleam, NameBadge.com has converted some 6.8 percent of those almost-abandonments into sales with an instant coupon.
3. Get More Content Downloaded
Brands invest a lot of time in creating content marketing (e.g., whitepapers, e-books, infographics) and should present the opportunity to download them when it's appropriate. For instance, if a customer is reading about retargeting on a Web page but is about to leave, why not include an exit-intent popup that offers the chance to download a free whitepaper on the topic? This is what OptiMonk does below. An offer for high-quality, relevant content just might be what the visitor needs to consider doing business with the company offering it.
4. Offer Free Gifts
It's tough to turn down a free gift especially when it's from a site, which a person found relevant, interesting or helpful. Using OptiMonk, Digital Marketer created five exit-intent popups ran over a couple weeks to the tune of receiving thousands of new leads, lower bounce rates and increased time on site. One of the popups wasn't an exit-offer per say but worked similarly in that it was a delayed overlay for a free gift for returning visitors.
5. Challenge Visitors
There are some people who have never met a challenge they didn't like, so when exit-intent offers start to seem mundane, consider creating a unique challenge or contest for visitors who are about to leave a site. AmbitionAlly, for example, offers a 30-day email challenge, which is intriguing and relevant to why its site visitors are there (to acquire more customers).
Wait There's More
Including exit-intent offers on your website is often just a few lines of code away. There are so many affordable vendors who will walk you through how to get started that this technology is worth a look today as it will typically provide a quick return on investment, which is very much tracklable. What's more, most of the solutions offer A/B testing of messages, reporting and complete customization of the timing of the message. Some solutions, include:
